RSM HIKERS: Penang Bridge International Marathon 2009

Again, the 2009 Penang Bridge Run was over again. As a runner, I treated this event similar to the yearly final examination. The result showed the effort that we had put in thru out the year.
The story started chin ca in April 2009 when I poh mia online for the half marathon event. The early bird got 10% discount and I only paid RM36 instead of RM40 (RM4 e chiak Koi Teow Thng lio). When you registered, shi pek kuai you obtained your Bib #.

Ha ha, I am te 17 person registered for the half marathon online. To the event day, still have 7 months and e sai kong this is a record. Month by month, day by day, training and training, 2 weeks before the run, I joined Chris (Former Marathon champion) at Botanical garden in order to gain some tips for the final exam.

1 week before the bridge run, I and few running gang took part in Tanjong 10K as part of the PBIM preparation. 2 of my members able to squeeze in top 15 which won the bigger medal.

Me ? You know la, joined for fun only, still very big gap to get the prize. But the god seems to be crazy, look at the photo what I stride.

First prize, a brand new modenas motorcycle - KRISS 100E. Chin nya hok khi that day. For the whole day you see my mouth cannot close but I tell you what, after 2 weeks, I still haven't received the prize.

For the last 7 days before the run, I went to sleep before 10.30pm every day in order to maintain the good form during the race day. I went to collect the Vest, Bib # and goodies bag on 16/11/09. The process is very slow but fortunately the organiser given 6 collection days plus home delivery which made the collection very smooth.

The PBIM eventually arrived. Waked up at about 2am (Only slept for about 2 hours), get everything ready and at 2.30pm, my running gang already waiting outside my house. We walked to Queensbay Mall and pan sai pan jio at Estin new toilet. The race start at 3.30 am sharp. The starting point was terrible, everybody were pushing to cross the narrow start line. Your champion chip was scanned here. After the starting line, the run was very smooth with no obstruction. The road a bit dark but there are many PBIM volunteers stood beside the road to cheer and motivate the runner, I like that. When I reached 2.8 km u-turn point, I can see the 10KM marking signboard and my watch showed 52 mins. I can't believed it as my my pace was not that fast and the measurement I made on google map only showed 9km, anyhow it is not important to me as my mission was to completed the race by 2 hours 15 mins. First 10km was very comfortable to me but 2nd 10km was a bit hard for me as my knee start to feel pain and I had to slow down my pace to prevent unnecessary incident.A long the road, the water station is really many and I almost drink at all stations. Thanks to organiser but hope next year don't give a bottle to runner as I felt it is dangerous to the runner since many peoples simply thrown it on the road and we the runner has to avoid to step on it. The feeling at last 1 km was very great when a group of Scout cheering and clapping their hand to you which made me run faster and finished at 2 hours 3 minutes and 50 secs, 12 mins ahead the target setting time.